THE ISLAND OF BERMUDA 183 



sentatives of the marsupials, it would not be unreasonable to 

 argue that the opossums had invaded North America from the 

 southern continent. Mr. Lydekker's * conclusion is that 

 opossums are only recent immigrants from the south, 

 although he does not believe that South America v^as their 

 original home. He (p. 55) selects south-eastern Asia as the 

 birthplace of the opossum family (Didelphyidae), urging that 

 the latter scattered 'from this centre towards Europe and North 

 America. He also contends that the allied family Dasyu- 

 ridae priginated in southern Asia, spreading thence to 

 Australia, and by an antarctic land connection from there to 

 South America. I shall return to this subject in some of the 

 subsequent chapters (p. 283 and p. 366). 



There is still another problem of exceptional interest which 

 I wish to enlarge upon, namely, that of the origin of the 

 Bermudan fauna. The island of Bermuda has certain 

 faunistic affinities with Florida, and we may therefore con- 

 sider the origin of its fauna as an appendix to this chapter. 

 It consists in reality of a series of about one hundred 

 islands and islets, their total area being less than twenty 

 square miles. The island of Bermuda, as we may call it for 

 the sake of brevity, lies approximately seven hundred miles 

 eastward of North Carolina, being apparently surrounded on 

 all sides by a depth of from 1,500 to 2,000 fathoms. 

 Dr. Wallace,! who gives us a brief description of the 

 fauna ajid flora of the island, concludes that Bermuda 

 furnishes us with one of the most instructive facts as to the 

 power of many groups of organisms to pass over seven 

 hundred miles ,of open sea. There is no doubt whatever, 

 he remarks, that all the indigenous species have thus reached 

 the island. 



I may as well say that my own views differ entirely from 

 those of Dr. Wallace as regards the origin of Bermuda and of 

 its indigenous fauna and flora. I believe the island to have 

 formed part of a wide belt of land, which extended northward 

 from the West Indies, joining the mainland of North America 

 somewhere near Massachusetts, at a time when most of the 



* Lydekker, E., " Geographical History of Mammals," p. 108. 

 t Wallace, A. E., "Island Life," p. 273. 



